The Lost Heiress #2 (18 page)

The Sekoi snarled at Carys. “You betrayed us,” it hissed. “I always knew you would.”

“I had no choice!” Suddenly it was all too much. She scorched into temper, leaping up and pushing Raffi aside so fiercely that he lost balance and crashed into the thick drift of leaves. Crossbows swiveled after him. He lay still.

“He knows something about me! I thought it would help if I told him about you, and it was a way of telling you about the Interrex! For Flain’s sake, Galen, I never thought you’d really find her!”

The Sekoi spat. “Playing both sides, as ever.”

Galen stood listening, silent.

Carys marched up to Braylwin and stared down at him, her hand quivering with fury. “But this slug has brains. He’s like a shadow. Whatever I tried I couldn’t throw him off.”

She turned her head, suddenly not sure whom she was angry with. “I’m sorry, Galen. All of you.”

“Impressive.” Braylwin looked at her admiringly. “You’ll go far. I almost believe it myself.”

Stubbornly she glanced at Raffi. He looked away. What was she doing? What was she really up to?

Galen stirred, ignoring the taut bows. He looked coldly down at the Watchlord. “I’ll give you no information, no matter what you do.”

Braylwin shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. The boy will talk.” He smiled easily. “Believe me, I know. I’ve seen them scream and beg to tell me anything, even to die. He looks terrified already.”

Leaves pattered in the bitter silence. Braylwin scratched his cheek with a thumbnail. “So. The Interrex exists and is in the hands of the Watch! It seems all your dreams are in ruins, keeper. It also poses an interesting little problem for me, actually. After all, I don’t want to tell the schoolmaster in there why I want her. There’ll be a stiff reward for this one, and I don’t intend to share it.” He glanced over. “Except with my loyal staff, of course.”

Carys glared at him. She looked so cold and expressionless Raffi was suddenly icy with terror—the sense-lines wreathed around the backs of his hands, raising the small hairs. She raised the crossbow slowly, until it was pointing directly at Braylwin’s head.

He smiled, sweating slightly. “Don’t you love your uncle, then, Carys? You ought to, you know. Fire that weapon and you and these will die in the same shower of bolts, and that would be a shame, now, wouldn’t it. Such a promising career.”

The bow didn’t waver. Confused, a few of the horsemen aimed at her reluctantly.

“He’s right.” Galen’s voice was harsh and steady. He watched, a half smile on his hooked face, his eyes dark and sharp. “It wouldn’t be worth it, Carys.”

She whirled so the bow faced him. “Maybe I should kill you, then. Profitable for me, better for you. Better than torture, anyway. I’ve seen what they’ll do to you.”

Dry-mouthed, Raffi watched. No one was looking at him anymore, but he didn’t dare to crawl away.

“I think,” Galen said softly, “you should remember your own first rule. Isn’t it something about the Watch always being watched?”

He moved, walking slowly toward her while the Sekoi fidgeted with terror. Coming close, he put a hand on the bow and pushed it gently down. Taints of purple sparked from the keeper’s fingers; Carys saw them and stared.

The bolt smacked into dry leaves.

At the same time, out of nowhere, arrows slashed across the clearing into the Watchmen, sending their horses swirling in a sudden crashing, whinnying panic. A bolt slammed into a tree above Raffi; he rolled, scrambling and wriggling deep under the leaves and away.

When he raised his head and looked back, Galen and the Sekoi hadn’t moved. Neither had Braylwin. But the five Watchmen lay still, and the rest were scrambling from their horses’ tangled harnesses.

Around them, among the trees, a war-band laughed and mocked; a dirty, gold-decked, gaudy army, dressed and painted in crazy colors, their horses’ manes tangled with bright ribbons.

Galen looked at Braylwin. “You may be ruthless, my lord. But here’s someone who could give you lessons. I too have my troublesome shadow.”

Braylwin stood and stared at the tiny man in the blue quilted robe who was leaping from his horse.

“You may have heard of him,” Galen said drily. “His name is Alberic.”

The dwarf grinned, immensely pleased. “This is a feast, Galen Harn, a feast! Not only you and that tale-spinner, but a Watchlord! A ripe, fat, money-dripping Watchlord!” He was hugging himself in delight, dancing a few happy steps among the leaves. “Down, boys and girls! Pick up those bows. Whip some rope around our prisoners.”

Appalled, Braylwin glowered. “You can’t. You wouldn’t dare . . .”

“Shut it, flesh-pile!” Instantly Alberic’s joy died. His shrewd eyes flicked around the clearing. “Wait!” Then he whirled on Galen and roared the question the keeper had been waiting for.

“Where’s your scholar? And where’s that girl!”

Rule of the Watch

C
LOSE UP, THE WATCHHOUSE was immense, a squat, ugly building of black brick, dumped in the forest. All around stood its defenses; a fence of spiked logs, a ditch, and one drawbridge, lowered now, for the children to straggle across.

From his hiding place under the thorns, Raffi watched them forming up in lines, many staggering under the weight of logs and kindling; even the smallest children had their arms crammed full. There were three guards; two laughing and joking together, the last calling up to someone at a window. None of them were watching the trees.

Carys nudged him sharply, and was gone.

He hoisted the wood bundle up against his face and stumbled out behind her, his heart thudding like a hammerbird’s knock. The sense-lines snagged under his eyelid; he knew Alberic’s hunters were only yards behind.

And still he couldn’t believe what he was doing.

“Line up!” Someone shoved him; he kept his head down, praying numbly. Children closed in behind. Quickly they began to walk.

The branches were heavy, but they kept him hidden, and the boy next to him didn’t even glance across. There was no talking, no pushing. In the silence he could even hear the leaves falling, and the whistle of an oat-piper far off in the wood. Then wooden planks were under his feet; the children’s boots rang in hollow echoes. They were crossing the drawbridge.

Glancing up, he saw the archway gaping over him, a great mouth, one lantern hanging from it like a single tooth. This was it. He didn’t know any passwords, any rules. Carys would get in, but they were bound to find him, drag him out, beat him. He closed his eyes.

She jolted against him. “Stay close.”

The arch swallowed them. He sensed it over him, felt suddenly small, as if his personality had shrunk, become crushed. Defiantly, miserably, he mumbled the Litany.

The smell of the place was overpowering. Old musty rooms, stale fat, a smell of fear, long-enclosed, as if the windows were never opened. And it was bitterly cold.

As the line shuffled on, he glanced at Carys; to his surprise he saw something like hatred on her face. She moved up to him, but before she could speak the line halted.

Ahead the children were chanting numbers to a boredlooking woman on a stool; then one by one they disappeared through a doorway. Nervously Raffi waited his turn.

“Next,” the woman said, not looking up.

He had decided what to say.

“N-nine one four,” he stammered, then walked on fast, in case she raised her eyes from the page and looked at him. In seconds Carys was behind him; there was no outcry. It seemed to have worked. In relief he breathed his thanks to Flain.

They found themselves going down a dim stairway; at the bottom was an evil-smelling cellar where the children were stacking the wood. Their silence scared Raffi. They didn’t laugh, or joke, or even smile. And he saw how they all watched one another, slyly, as if none of them were friends, or to be trusted.

Carys pulled him gently by the sleeve, then turned and marched out of a different door. Trying to look calm, he followed. She looked as if she knew where she was going. Through a warren of crypts and cellars, up some stairs, then into a corridor where the roof leaked. Opening the first door on the left she peered in, drew her head out, and nodded.

They slid inside, and closed the door tight.

It was a storeroom. Barrels were stacked against a cracked wall. The hearth was a drift of wind-blown ashes.

Raffi breathed out slowly. Then he said, “I can’t believe we’re in.”

She went over and knelt on top of the barrels, rubbing dust from one pane of a tiny window. “Keep your voice down.”

“Will they come in here?”

“It’s unlikely.”

He looked at her back. “How did you know about it? How did you know your way?”

Cold suspicions moved in on him like eelworms, but she turned and stared at him contemptuously. “Don’t be stupid, Raffi. These places are all the same—if you know one, you know them all. The Watch pride themselves on that. Wherever you go, always the same. One big family.”

She turned back to the window, but he still watched her. Quietly he said, “So you knew this room somewhere else?”

For a while he thought she wouldn’t answer. Then she said, “It was the one I spent hours in at Marn Mountain. I had it all worked out. The rotas were easy to alter—everyone thought I was in some other class. I kept food here, books, all the things you weren’t allowed. I did it for years, till they found out.”

“What did they do to you?”

“They promoted me, of course.” She turned and grinned at him. “In the Watch, the slyer you are, the better. You look shocked.”

“I just . . .” He shook his head. “I always assumed you liked it.”

“Liked it!” She spat viciously into the ashes. “These places are hell, Raffi! You’ve got no idea. Come up here.”

He climbed up beside her. She rubbed the spot on the window wider, and looking through it he saw a grim courtyard, with a high spiked wall. Children huddled around. Some sat in groups, others ran to keep warm, but there was still little noise, except from one end of the yard where a group silently watched three boys beat a smaller one, punching him in the face and stomach while he sobbed. Raffi stared in horror. “Why doesn’t someone stop them?”

Carys smiled grimly. “It’s probably a punishment. Look.”

Two Watchmen were standing behind the crowd, their arms folded, laughing. One shouted encouragement.

Raffi turned away. He was white with anger. “No wonder Galen hates the Watch. How can they make the children punish each other?”

“They don’t make them. They volunteer.” She climbed down and sat beside him.

“Volunteer!”

“You get better food. And credits on your workcard. The more of those, the better you do. I’ll bet Braylwin collected plenty.”

“What about you?” He stared at her. “Did you ‘volunteer’?”

“Sometimes.” She said it softly, looking away from him. “They teach you how to use people here, Raffi. I never realized that until after. To hunt and lie and lay traps but never to care. And you have to survive, you have to get through it somehow. Have you ever thought of what happens to those who don’t?”

Numb, he shook his head.

“Well, they vanish. It’s said they’re thrown down the Pits. The Watch has no failures.”

In silence they heard a bell ring, far off in the building. The scuffles stopped outside. Then Raffi said, “Where do we look for her?”

“We don’t, yet. At five bells they all parade in that yard for name-check. Then you’ll have to see if she’s there. You haven’t told me how you know what she’s like.”

He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Then what?”

“From where she stands in line I’ll know where she sleeps. But listen. If I get caught, you don’t know me. Understand? You just walk by. One of us has to get her out.”

“I can’t,” he muttered.

“You can. You’d better. Because if you’re caught, that’s what I’ll be doing.”

He didn’t know whether to believe her or not.

All afternoon they stayed hidden in the cramped storeroom, except that every hour Carys led him out through a maze of corridors, walking quickly, looking at no one, coming back to the room when the patrol would have looked in and passed on.

“The sweep, we call it. Two men check every room in the whole house constantly. It took about an hour at Marn. You have to time it just right.”

Bewildered, Raffi sat on the floor. The place upset him. He dared not send out sense-lines; they touched things that made him feel sick. Odd noises and cries echoed in the building; he had glimpses of desolate classrooms, like the one in his vision. He felt trapped, totally cut off. “And if we find her,” he said, “how do we get her out? Or help Galen?”

Carys licked thirsty lips. “Galen can take care of himself. But you’re right about one thing. Getting in was easy. I haven’t a clue how we’re going to get out.”